The week that was in property

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released demographic data for the March 2016 quarter late last week.

The data showed that the national population increased by 0.4% over the March 2016 quarter to reach an estimated 24,051,404 persons.

Over the year to March 2016, the national population increased by 327,610 persons, growth of 1.4%.

The rate of population increase nationally, is driven by two sources: net overseas migration and natural increase (births minus deaths).

Over the year, there was net overseas migration of 180,847 persons and natural increase of 146,763 persons.

Net overseas migration was 2.0% higher over the year while natural increase was -4.9% lower.

The greatest increases in population over the year were recorded in Vic (114,865), NSW (103,241), Qld (61,769) and WA (29,819).

Vic and NSW combined accounted for two thirds of national population growth, with the largest four states accounting for 94.5% of total population growth.

Across the remaining states and territories the annual increases were recorded at: 9,741 in SA, 4,989 in ACT, 2,202 in Tas and 960 in NT.

In terms of the annual rates of population growth across each state, they were recorded at: 1.4% in NSW, 1.9% in Vic, 1.3% in Qld. 0.6% in SA, 1.2% in WA, 0.4% in Tas, 0.4% in NT and 1.3% in ACT.

Population growth is strongest into the two largest states, most of which is occurring in Sydney and Melbourne.

This is creating additional demand for housing and contributing to the ongoing growth in home values in these cities.

Conversely in WA and NT where population growth has slowed dramatically and net interstate migration is declining we are seeing ongoing weakness in the Perth and Darwin housing markets.

The ANZ-Roy Morgan Australian Consumer Confidence measure for the week ending 25 September rose by 4.4% to 120.6 points.

The release reported that the increase in consumer confidence was broad-based.

The release also showed that respondent views on their current finances were at their highest levels since before the GFC.

There were 2,480 capital city auctions over the week ending September 25 with CoreLogic collecting results for 2,250 of these auctions or almost 91% of all auctions.

The final clearance rate was recorded at 75.4%, which was lower than the 76.2% across 2,149 auctions the previous week.

Last week in Melbourne, there were 1,103 auctions compared to 965 auctions the previous week.

Last week’s auction clearance rate was recorded at 77.2% which was slightly lower than the 77.8% the previous week.

In Sydney, the auction clearance rate was recorded at 80.4% last week which was lower than the 81.6% recorded over the previous week.

Sydney recorded a higher number of auctions last week (945) compared to the previous week (815).

In Melbourne, auction clearance rates have now been above 75% for 7 consecutive weeks.

In Sydney, auction clearance rates have been above 80% for four consecutive weeks and for five of the past six weeks.

Note that sales listings are based on a rolling 28 day count of unique properties that have been advertised for sale.

There were 45,675 newly advertised properties added to the market nationally over the past 28 days which was -0.4% lower than at the same time a year ago while there were 233,315 total properties advertised for sale over the same period which was -0.3% lower than a year ago.

Across the combined capital cities, there were 27,443 newly advertised listings over the past 28 days which was 3.1% lower than a year ago and 104,439 total listings which was 5.3% higher than a year ago.

Newly advertised listings are currently lower than a year ago in Sydney (-18.3%), Melbourne (-2.3%) and Adelaide with new listings higher elsewhere.

In terms of total properties advertised for sale, supply is lower than a year ago in Sydney (-2.7%), Hobart (-25.7%) and Canberra (-8.2%).

Despite the fact that new and total listings are slightly lower than they were a year ago, the number of both are continuing to trend higher indicating that stock levels are slowly rising.

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